Former WCU student sentenced in dorm fight

WEST CHESTER -- A former West Chester University student and standout hockey player at Pope John Paul II High School in Montgomery County will spend his summer in Chester County Prison courtesy of a sentence Friday by Senior Judge Thomas Gavin.

The youth “viciously attacked” his former roommate at a WCU dorm in a drunken rage after the roommate asked the school to change their living arrangements because of the defendant’s drug and alcohol abuse, the prosecutor in the case told Gavin in asking for a prison term for Zachery Russell.

“This was an all-out, unprovoked attack,” said Deputy District Attorney Michelle Frei, describing what happened in the Brandywine Hall dormitory at WCU in April. “It was not a one-punch case.”

Russell, 20, of Gilbertsville pleaded guilty in December to charges of simple assault, resisting arrest, and giving false identification to police. His victim, Michael Giovinco Jr. suffered severe bruises and cuts to his face from the pummeling Russell delivered, Frei said.

Russell’s attorney, on the other hand, asked Gavin to treat the case as an outgrowth of his client’s addiction problems, and to spare him from sitting behind bars.

“We understand fully that this court must punish for these activities,” defense attorney John Griffin of Philadelphia told Gavin at the sentencing hearing. “But this was an incident born out of addiction and drunkenness” that should be handled with a period of probation and continued counseling.

Russell, who was captain of his hockey team at St. John Paul II before enrolling in WCU, apologized for his behavior to Giovinco, who sat a few feet away from him in Gavin’s courtroom.

“The worst part of this is that we both lost a good friend,” said Russell, who was accompanied at the hearing by about 20 family members and friends. “But this would never have happened if I had not been intoxicated that night. It just would not have happened.”

Russell said he is now a dean’s list student at Montgomery County Community College studying to be an accountant,

“I’ve been desperately trying to change my life,” he told Gavin. “I am not a bad kid. I am a good kid who made a mistake.”

But in declaring that the case was not one that should be resolved with a probationary sentence, Gavin said he was all too familiar with out of control drunken behavior at WCU, as well as how young people can be held responsible for their actions while away at school.

“I sent five children to college with one rule: not to do anything that would bring disgrace on your family,” Gavin said. “Why do things like this happen? I don’t have the answer. But this was no fair fight. This was a sucker punch. Thanks God you were pulled off him before anything worse happened.”

Gavin sentenced Russell to three to 23 months in county prison, followed by two years of probation. In deference to his work in school, where he appears to be doing well, Gavin allowed Russell to delay the start of his sentence until the end of the current semester in mid-May. He also said he would allow him to get work release after serving 30 days.

The assault occurred when Russell and Giovinco were freshmen at WCU. The two shared a dorm room in the fall of 2011, but Giovinco, who had enrolled in the college to study pharmaceutical marketing, became concerned about Russell’s escalating use of alcohol and drugs.

Russell’s mother, Donna Russell, told Gavin in asking for a lenient sentence for her son, that her family grappled with addiction problems for generations. She said that her son had begun self-medicating for spinal pain he suffered from, and despite her best efforts continued to use alcohol and drugs when he went to school.

After complaining about Russell’s behavior to school officials, Giovinco was given a new roommate and obtained an order forbidding Russell from having any contact with him.

But on the evening of April 16 at about 11:30 p.m., Giovinco was watching a Phillies game in the 6th floor television room of Brandywine Hall, according to an arrest affidavit filed by WCU police, when Russell entered the room, saw Giovinco, and threw a plastic drink bottle at him.

Giovinco, who was talking on his cell phone with his father, left the room, walking to the resident assistant’s room to report Russell’s behavior. Russell, however, followed him, and threw a punch at his head that knocked Giovinco to the floor. Russell began punching Giovinco in the head and chest until he was pulled away.

Frei told Gavin that Russell punched Giovinco so hard that he broke his hand on his victim’s face.

When police approached Russell later outside the dorm, they could tell he was heavily intoxicated, the affidavit stated. Frei said it took three police officers to take him into custody, but that he continued to act out even as the police took him to Chester County Hospital to treat his broken hand.

While there he resisted effort to calm down and asked one of the officers, “Why am I being arrested? I won the fight.”

Russell, as part of his sentence, will be responsible to continue his addiction counseling and make restitution to Giovinco for his out of pocket medical expenses.